The Marshall County Tigers (3-1) recorded their second straight blowout victory on Thursday night when they went on the road and crushed the Huntland Hornets 81-44.

Despite playing for the first time in 13 days, the Tigers looked sharp early on and led by as many as 31 points in the second quarter before taking a 47-23 advantage into halftime.

Marshall County continued to distance themselves from Huntland (3-3) in the second half and outscored the Hornets 34-21 over the final two quarters to roll to the 37-point victory.

'Crisp' defense

"I felt confident that we were going to come out and play well, but we were a little bit more crisp defensively than I anticipated," said MCHS coach Adrian Wilson. "We came out and played sound defense in the first quarter. I don't think they were ready for our athleticism."

Although they hit only 4-of-19 attempts from three-point range, the Tigers shot 52 percent (34-of-66) from the field overall, highlighted by a 11-of-17 shooting performance in the first quarter, while committing just eight turnovers.

Chris Walker led Marshall County's offensive attack by pouring in a season high 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting to go along with seven rebounds and five steals.

D'Andre Brown followed Walker with 11 points, and Aaron Hobbs tallied 10 points. Malek Sain and Darious McKenzie also added nine points apiece, while Kasey Pleas and Jay Howard each notched six points. Curtis Keiler (four points), Tre Crutcher (three points), Zach Johnson (three points), Steven Dangerfield (two points), and Quavion Harris (two points) rounded out the scoring for MCHS.

Few stings

Hindered by a 1-of-19 effort from beyond the arc, the Hornets shot just 33 percent (19-of-58) from the floor while the Tigers recorded 20 steals en route to forcing 23 Huntland turnovers. The Hornets did hold a 15-12 edge on the offensive glass, but Marshall County outrebounded Huntland 35-32 overall.

Kobe Foster paced the Hornets with 13 points and Kiel Graham tallied 10 points. Kevin Jernigan also chipped in six points for Huntland, while Tyler Smith and Will Rector both had four points.

The Tigers set the tempo early and jumped out to a 7-2 lead just 1:10 into the contest thanks to three points from Walker and a pair of layups from Brown and Sain.

After Jernigan scored on a layup to narrow the gap to 7-4, Marshall County brought down the hammer and put together a 20-0 run with the help of six points from Howard and four points from Hobbs to forge a 27-4 advantage late in the first quarter.

Tiger charge

The Hornets notched the last four points of the first period to trim the deficit to 27-8, but MCHS responded with a 14-2 spurt behind seven points from Walker and a Brown three-point play to push their lead to 41-10 midway through the second quarter.

Huntland outscored the Tigers 13-4 over the next 3:21 to cut the deficit to 45-23 before Harris hit a layup in the waning seconds of the half to give Marshall County a 47-23 advantage at the break.

MCHS kept their foot on the Hornets' neck in the third quarter and opened the stanza with a 12-6 run on the strength of five points from Walker and a Johnson trey to open up a 59-29 advantage.

The Hornets closed the gap to 59-32 midway through the third period on a three by Aaron Williams before the Tigers engineered an 8-2 spurt with the aid of four points from Brown to make it 67-34 early in the fourth.

After Foster made two free throws to trim the deficit to 67-36, Marshall County outscored Huntland 14-8 the rest of the way with the help of treys from Sain and Crutcher to cap their 81-44 triumph.